The Orphan
by Udaman
Summary: Gray, a young man of the age 15, has recently had his life shattered by a freak slaughter of his parent. He must now leave his home in search of a sustainable life. Very emotional.
1. A Grey Life

Gray looked up into the clouds, thinking to himself about how much he hated the overcast, it left the world in a grey murk of gloomy disaster. The flowers on the side of his house no longer glowed the red and yellow they used to, and the glint of the sun into his eyes from the glasses on the house no longer made the world seem too bright, just more hazy.

He stood up, wondering what would wait for him on the inside of his house. His expectations failed to meet reality. He looked at the dark grey kitchen, the mustiness of it all.

His parents had died a little more than a week before. They had both been attacked by skeletons in the night. Not expecting to see white figures jump out of a pitch black forest, the two adults had been slaughtered viciously, leaving their 15 year-old boy, Gray, to fend for himself.

Life was tough without his parents, he had stopped tending to the farm animals, as well as many other parts of his former life. He, instead, killed the farm animals on the first day of being alone, preferring to cook and eat them rather than keep them alive. The farm he lived on was slow deteriorating from misuse as Gray did not know much about farming melons, and drought was killing the grains. The house was ready to fall apart, his parents had left him the night before their "cleaning" day. The house was filled with rotting food, the timber had mold on it, the water spring where they got their water from had dried up.

Gray walked in and immediately decided it was time for him to find his own way, the wall of the house was leaning inward, he could see the cross beams behind it. He didn't want somebody to come in and destroy all of his things, so he decided that he would wait for night, that way a creeper could come and wash away all of the bad things in his life, preventing the good things from being found or used again.


	2. A Weird Night

The night came, the sky remained that awful depressing color that made Gray want to shrink in a ball, so he found himself sitting in a corner of the house and crying. He knew that it was a bad idea with what was coming. He tried to put some strength into the living world so that he could leave, but only found the tears came faster.

He heard a noise outside and suddenly the tears stopped, he wiped his eyes with his tattered shirt and grabbed the rusty iron sword from the kitchen counter. "This is it," he thought, considering if he could make it out alive, having waited so long into the night. The door smashed open, and Gray saw the offender coming into the light, but not seeing Gray. It was no creeper, but a skeleton, Gray almost burst into a pained laugh, but was able to keep himself quiet as the creature moved away from him. He tiptoed closer to the skeleton, making sure not to hit anything.

The skeleton turned to the left and saw Gray out of the corner of it's eye. Gray jumped in surprise and then leaped forward, slicing the first arrow that the skeleton threw in half. The skeleton ran and tried to load another, the Gray was practically on top of the skeleton and swung his sword at it, knocking the bow out of it's arms. The skeleton kicked Gray, then went for the bow. Gray, on the ground, grabbed his sword and knocked the skeleton's feet off. On it's way to the ground, the skeleton turned so that it fell straight on top of Gray. Gray got the skeleton into a headlock, managed to kick it in the side too, then his world went black.


	3. Is This What They Call A Hangover

The Morning light came through the openings in the deteriorating roof, the walls were almost all destroyed. Gray's eyes fluttered, he woke with a start. The night was a blur in his head, his foot was clearly sprained, or worse. Hi found the mirror to be smashed, so he had no idea what he looked like. He walked into the kitchen to find what the night before had all been about. On the floor there was a skeleton, what was left of one, sprawled across the cobble. He couldn't begin to guess what had caused the skeleton to be so mutilated, even one of the bones was broken. The scene didn't make sense, Gray remembered nothing of the night before, but he knew he wasn't sore enough to have earlier kicked a bone in.

Gray then saw something that was entirely new to him, the skeleton he retained something in it's hand, seemed to be holding it out to the spot that Gray was lying in the night. The hand was clenched tight. Gray decided to use his sword instead. The fingers sprawled onto the flow as Gray cut the joints. The hand released the object it was holding, causing Gray to flinch. The material inside was nothing he had ever seen before, it was jet black with streaks of purple, and seemed to radiate danger. Gray came forward and poked it with his sword. He jumped back, the matter wasn't some piece of bedrock, it was alive, or used to be. Gray could tell just by looking at the flesh that it had been ripped off of something else, meaning that the creature it came from would have had to be in his house the night before.

Gray grabbed the one piece of tnt and the flint and steel, running outside after lighting it. He walked as calmly as he could down the path, taking inventory as he went. The pain in his leg had died down, leading him to believe that it was not as bad an injury as he had once thought. The tools he had salvaged from the decaying house were all questionable. He had a rusting sword made of iron, bent up because of the night before. He also had an iron pick, a stone shovel, a wooden hoe, and a stone axe. The tools were all in good shape except for the sword, he would have to find another if he was to survive another night.

Continuing down the road, watching the world go by, he made his way toward the forest. As a child, Gray had been told to never go into the forest, his parent warned that the dangers in there would kill any human on sight. The forest was knowingly hard to make it through, as it was more than a days trip to reach the other end. That meant that one who traveled through the forest would have to face the night creatures head on. His parent had made it through the forest once, it had got them to settling in the clearing that they had a child in. With their passing, Gray had to make it through the forest, he needed to travel to another vestige of human society before his completely collapsed around him.

The forest approached with a silent gloom, seeming to ward off intruders. Gray practically ran into the forest when he was close enough. He kept the pace up for as long as his legs would carry him, hoping to reach the other end before the dusk settled in. The shadows slowly became elongated as he ran. The sun lost it's yellow and turned to orange. Gray clenched the handle of his sword as it lay in it's sheath, he accepted that he needed to find a better way to cope with the forest than to waste his remaining energy running through part of it.

finding a tall spruce tree, Gray searched until he discovered the lowest branch, and began to climb. The climb was excruciating, his foot still pained him, he was completely out of energy, and there were scratches across his entire body after he had sprinted through several miles of forest.

The night was advancing, the trees were losing their shadows to the twilight. Gray knew the creatures of the night would be out soon, but he found some peace in the branch he had allocated himself on. He let his eyes droop, dosing off several times. He finally found his sleep a short time after


	4. Arachnophobia

In the night, Gray awoke with a sudden lash of pain. He screamed a gut wrenching scream, yanked his sword from it's holster, and locked onto the nearest source of danger. There were red eyes glowing at him in the dark, he couldn't make out the creature, but one of them had made his leg go completely numb in a matter of seconds. He practically threw the sword in the face of the nearest creature, just barely managed to hold onto the the handled.

He sat up on the branch and looked around. There was nothing to worry about above him or to his immediate left of right, so he leaned over and looked down. His heart stopped, below him there were at least a hundred, probably more, glowing red sets of eyes. many were climbing up the tree towards him. He clutched his sword next to his chest and prayed to the gods he refused to believe in. He found that it would be impossible to stand as now both of his legs seemed to want to jump of his body.

He whimpered in pain and stabbed the first set of eyes, he heard a crunching sound as the creature fell into the rest of the creature that were under it. He supposed that they were spiders, noticing for the first time that they each had eight eyes. He watched as the ones that could climbed back onto the tree. He tried to be ready for them when he remembered that there was another side of the branch. Gray tried to swing himself around, but found that he had been too late. He was wrenched almost out of his sitting position as his abdomen found a searing pain glide down it. Gray drove his sword into the spider, pushing it down into the next as it lost it's life.

The night went on as he struggled to maintain a hold on his sanity. The spiders continued their assault on his branch. They couldn't attain a hit on Gray anymore, but Gray found it increasingly hard to swing his sword at even the nearest attacker. The sun began to approach the horizon, red streaks burst through the trees. The spiders all of a sudden halted in unison. Gray refrained from attacking the nearest spider, he made the excuse to himself that he was just too tired. The spiders began to withdraw. Gray laid his head against the tree.


	5. The End Of Civilization

Gray realized he had to make it out of the tree. He attempted to slide down the side of the tree, found that gravity had decided he would go to the ground instead. His numb leg hit the ground first, then his injured foot. He yelled, made the birds fly away. He sobbed on the ground, not willing to go on. The journey was already over, he closed his eyes and willed himself to die. He heard thunder in the distance, it brought him back to consciousness. He looked up to the sky, saw a dark mass in the clouds coming closer from the way he had come. He stood, fell when he tried to put weight on his numb leg.

Gray examined the wound that had left his leg almost useless. He found that it was merely two puncture wounds, big ones, but very circular. He was about to try to stand up when his heart skipped a beat, he realized what had happened. He had a venomous spider bite, a huge one, the only thing that was keeping them from bleeding was the swelling. He needed help, couldn't think. Gray knew he had to make it to the end of the forest, he had to find civilization.

Struggling to his feet, Gray began to stumble in the same direction he had the night before, toward what he thought was certain was the end of the forest. after a while the trees began to thin, Gray knew what was coming, he was dearly hoping there would be a settlement close to the forest. His leg was no longer the only thing numb, he had lost feeling in his abdomen as well as his stomach, all he felt was tingling there.

The edge of the forest was near, Gray started to run ,not paying attention to any pain he was in, his excitement was bubbling when he reached the tree line. He sprinted into the open meadow, looking around. There was nothing, not for a very long way. He looked in all directions, searching for a clue to where he could go. Gray squinted, desperate to see something, in the distance he spotted a flash, in broad daylight. He looked that way, watched a smoke began to rise.

Something was happening, he ran toward the noise and the smoke, confident that there was someone or something that could help his rapidly depleting strength. The noise came closer and closer, he was able to pick out the screams of one of the opposing forces. He heard children crying, men yelling, and a whole matter of noises that just sounded terrifying, but Gray kept running. There was just a ridge in between him and the sounds, he started to struggle, the noises began to die down.

Gray crawled up the last few feet, came to the top of the hill and looked down to his own horror. To the left, the was a fairly large village, it was in flames. He saw dead bodies everywhere, some crawling toward buildings that were obviously all about to burn the right there was a small force of monsters retreating, he saw skeletons, no creepers, but that kindof made sense. He was what he guessed to he zombies. Then he saw a couple of what he immediately knew to be the creature that had been in his house that night before. They were jet black, with purple eyes and and purple streaks on their bodies.

The creatures both looked up at him, but they turned away when they heard a shout from somewhere that Gray could not see. Just then, a man came running out of the village with a young woman in his arms. She was clearly not conscious, she had jet black hair. Then her eyes fell open, they glowed a mesmerizing purple. Gray was captivated for a moment by the seen, he had never had human contact, and he didn't know what to think of the sight. The man turned his way, Gray jumped, knew that he was too far away for the man to see, but the man scared him. The man had no pupils, but didn't act blind.

The endermen began to stare straight at Gray again, but the man called them forward. They then proceed to grab the man and the woman. All of them instantly disappeared. Gray sat there, thinking of the people he had just seen. They clearly didn't like the town, which was burning to the ground in front of him. He could see people still attempting to survive in the town. The scene was horrifying, he couldn't just wait there.

Gray struggled to move, walked down the hill toward the village. His knees buckled beneath him, he started to roll down the hill, unable to stop. His vision started to blur, he sank to the ground at the bottom of the hill. Looking out at the burning shell of a village, he recognized a figure coming out of the smoke toward him.

Black...


	6. Nightmare

Gray awoke with a start, his head spun as he tried to asses the situation. He tried to to sit up, but all of a sudden his head was overcome by a wave of pain, he shivered and carefully laid his head down on the ground. Surprising, the ground seemed to have changed since the last time he could recall.

The sky was no longer cloudy blue, but brown with blue holes in it. He let his eyes focus, realized he was in some sort of building, the building having a partially burned roof. He looked around, found that he was in what looked like a barn, but he couldn't tell from his vantage point (in a pile of hay).

He heard a noise coming from what he thought was outside, it became louder. Trying to sit up, he groaned, there was pain all over him. The noise outside was becoming louder. He groaned, couldn't move, then he saw his arms, realized he wasn't wearing a shirt. His arms had black streaks moving down them, right where his veins should have been.

The noise was upon him now, he could tell it was somebody running. Just then, a figure ran to him from behind the pile of hay, gasping. It was a woman, he suspected she was about his age. She had long brown, almost black, hair, and very green eyes. She was clearly starved, or very close to it, but she was carrying a small amount of meat with her.

"Oh my notch, you're awake!" she said, almost shaking with excitement, "there's so much I need to tell you about." Her voice was urgent, but she seemed to have some measure of importance

"How long was I out?" Gray asked, "and who, exactly, are you." He noted that his voice sounded something close to a trainwreck, his throat burned at the movement.

"Ummm," she said, counting on her fingers, "about... a week, yeah. I am Kimberly, by the way, and you are?"

"My name is Gray" His mind drew a blank, couldn't believe that he had been out for an entire week, it was too surreal. He tried to wrap his mind around the idea, Kimberly had no way of proving the statement, and Gray had no solution that could disprove it. A thought came to him. "how did i get here, not the town, this barn?"

She sat on the ground at the edge of the pile, "I dragged you here, after you fell." Then, to herself, she muttered, "please, at least remember that" She had obvious concern in her eyes.

"Ah, shouldn't this place be burnt to the ground?"

"Well, yes, there was rain a bit after the raid, but most of the building were toppled by then. I got to you when the rain was just subsiding, you were on the ground, surrounded in blood filled water." Her eyes were stone cold, staring into space. Gray could easily tell that the flashback was paining her. She continued, "you were the only real "body" left out of all the people here," tears came out of her eyes, "this being... my home. You were the only one I even hoped would be alive. I checked your pulse, saw the numerous wounds you had." She composed herself, wiping the tears from her face. Thought a moment, "you had the spider bite, that was a tough one, gave you a seizure that stopped you heart at one point"

Gray gasped, then coughed because of the pain, tried to control himself, "I..what? ok, nevermind, what other injuries?" He couldn't think clearly, the pain was overwhelming.

Kimberly saw the pain, looked hurt. "Well, there was that spider bite on your leg. You did something to your ankle, I wasn't quite sure what is was, but it made your foot swell up. I just put a splint on it and the swelling disappeared is a couple of days. There was also this weird bump on the back of your head, it went away after a couple of days, but when it was there, you had a wicked fever." She seemed pained as she talked, "when it went away you... um.. seemed to start... just look at your arms! It's slowly spreading too."

He lifted an arm into his vision, knew what to expect, the sight of his veins turned black made them burn like fire. "Well," he stammered, "what do you think I should do, I can't really stand." The words burned at an increasing intensity. "I have to start doing something."

Kimberly swallowed, looked down at the materials she had in her arms, which included the meat and a couple of other things. She advanced towards him, holding something in her hand that he couldn't see. "Well, I have a way to keep you from the pain somehow.

Gray saw what she had in her hand, it was a weird leaf, he tried to crawl away, didn't want to find out what she had in her hand. "Don't you dare." His joints flare up in a chorus of pain, he slumped to a resting climbed towards him, reached out with her hand. Came towards his mouth, he clenched his teeth. His adrenaline was pumping, he found he could move without pain. Thrust his fist into her stomach, found he was too weak to push her back. She was clearly crying now, she force his mouth open and shoved the leaves down his throat.

He tried to spit, she covered his mouth. Swallowing involuntarily, his vision started to blur, he couldn't make out the walls.

A tear fell on his face, and he lost consciousness.


	7. Awakened

He snapped awake. Remembered what had last happened, sat up. Gray looked down at his chest to see the same black veins that had plagued him with pain, they were not longer burning, he looked at his arms to find the same thing.

He stood, stumbled, clearly hadn't had made such active movement in a while. Made his way towards the door. He thought of Kimberly, decided he didn't hate her, decided to go find her and help. He began to look about the rubble, where the building used to lay, there were soggy messes of ash and burnt wood. The sky was once again overcast.

He heard a noise coming from the edge of the village, made his way over, tripping every so often. Gray rounded the corner of the farthest building to see Kimberly, hunched over, looking worse than before. She was clearly starving, a lot worse than when Gray had last been awake. He saw tears in her eyes, but she hadn't yet noticed him.

Just then, Gray spotted something on the other side of her, coming her way, but she didn't see it. Gray ran, as best as he could. He tried to yell, but found he had no voice. Saw the creature now, it looked human, but had a greenish tint to the skin and clearly couldn't grasp the idea of speech.

Gray "bolted" past Kimberly, ran up to the creature and struck it, hard, below the jaw. The creature flew back, tried to stand. Kimberly looked up, seemed to not comprehend. Gray didn't stop, he ran forward, kicked the creature to the floor. He proceeded to walk up and kick it in the skull. It didn't try to get up after that.

Gray walked over to Kimberly, held out a hand, which she took. They stood together, looked into eachothers eyes. Gray felt he had to say something, had to thank her, or at least comfort her. Her eyes were gaunt. She was covered in dirt. He remembered that she had grown up here, had watched all of her life taken away. He thought back to his parents, his thoughts saddening him, they were gone too, not able to give him advice on what to do.

Gray spoke up, to relieve the moment of pain, "why and how am I in better shape than the person who nursed me back to health." He said the words in the wrong way, too cynical, but she seemed not to care.

"I did mention your fever, right?" she said, "well, afterwards, you were so deprived of food that I ended up giving most of it to you," then muttered, "maybe a little more than most." She looked down, her face was unreadable "You woke up a couple of times, each one longer than the last, I'm surprised that you don't remember.

Gray closed his eyes, couldn't believe it, he had no choice. "Ok, ok, let's just get out of here and find some way of feeding ourselves."

"But, who ever said I was going with you, I just kept you alive." She almost spat at him.

He thought a moment, then spoke, "you'd have a better chance of surviving if you and I worked together, and there clearly isn't enough food here to live on."

"Then why would you want me to come, I just make another mouth for you to feed, plus I'm not exactly in "working" condition."

Gray noted it as she then almost lost her balance without moving, he put his hands on her shoulders and held her steady. He seemed to lose his voice, uttered, "maybe you should come just because I want you to."

She didn't seem to notice his hesitation, was looking off to space, "fine I'll come, better than sitting here, starving to death."

"There you go," he said as reassuring as he could, both for Kimberly and himself. "Let's leave opposite to where I entered, the way I came isn't a place you want to find yourself."

Kimberly walked with him to the edge of the village, using him to keep her balance. They had just begun to walk with the village to their backs when she perked up, let go of him, and turned back. Made a remark, something about him staying there a minute. She stumbled back into the village.

He stood there, leaned against a building, he still didn't have to energy he remembered, worried himself with it for bit. He looked at himself, the black was still there, imposing, scaring him. He felt the back of his head, remembering that Kimberly had said something about a bump there. Gray couldn't remember hurting himself there, he rationalized, he must have fallen on it when he blacked out. Even so, he couldn't think of a reason for the black.

Kimberly walked out from in between two piles of rubble on Gray's left, carrying a sack in her hands. She dropped it with a clang in front of Gray. She remarked, "I managed to save your tools, although some of them are broken."

Gray tentatively picked the bag up, taking each tool out one by one. THe sword had snapped in half, possibly from the bag being dropped on the ground. The hoe was in a similar condition to the sword, having been snapped in half as well. The pick axe was faring well, Gray put it on his belt. The shovel was cracked and the head had come off, he threw it aside. The axe was almost pristine, he put it in his belt on the other side. "I can't thank you enough, Kimberly," he gushed, his gratitude for this almost complete stranger was quite high.

Kimberly blushed, thought of claiming it was nothing, then remembered how underfed she was. She looked out toward the horizon, the way they were about to set out the sun was close to setting, the sky was taking on a slightly orange tint.

Gray steadied himself, shifted his gaze towards the western horizon. He put his arm around Kimberly, steadying himself as well as keeping her from stumbling. He started forward, she held onto him, they moved together.

Gray felt a new sense of belonging, he had a goal, keep Kimberly alive, at all cost. He didn't understand it, why had he made the resolution to keep her safe? He had known her for less than a day, and the first time he met her she had purposefully put him to sleep against his will, if not for his own good. He contradicted his thoughts, she had starved herself to keep him alive, made him a bed to sleep on, and fed him when he was asleep. HIs thoughts were confusing him, but ultimately he decided that she was on his side, and it was obvious that she cared about him.

The sun went went under the horizon.


End file.
